Ten years ago today, on June 3, 1993, in West Memphis, Arkansas, police bullied and tricked a false confession out of a retarded teen named Jessie Misskelley. This confession, obviously a fantasy and filled with errors, was used immediately to arrest Misskelley, Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin for the murders of three children. In two trials that depended heavily on the juries' willingness to believe that Satan inspired the murders--the prosecutors would put on the stand an "expert" on the occult who had a mail-order degree in the subject--Metallica CDs and Aleister Crowley's writing were presented as "evidence" against the defendants. One prosecutor's closing argument acknowledged that an interest in Metallica or Crowley wouldn't necessarily indicate a murderer, but that "taken together," all of Damien Echols' interests proved his guilt in the child killings.

Misskelley, Echols and Baldwin have been in jail for 10 years as of today. A group of committed citizens labors to this day to free them. You can help.

The movie that brought this case to national attention, Paradise Lost (all items linked below), is an excellent introduction to this miscarriage of justice. The follow-up film, Revelations, is less about the crimes and more about one of the prime suspects in the case.

But by far the best single resource (other than the wm3.org website) is a comprehensive book by investigative journalist Mara Leveritt called Devil's Knot. The exhaustively researched book is packed with information, and Leveritt is scrupulously fair, but she is a fine storyteller as well--her focused, unsentimental presentation of the case wrings every bit of emotion out of it without ever being manipulative or pushy.

Devil's Knot, which I read in one sleepless night last October because I couldn't put it down, is one of the best true-crime books in print.